Richard A. Wolters - Family Dog: A Simple and Time-Proven Method

B Y THE S AME A UTHOR

Gun Dog

Water Dog

Home Dog

Kids Dog

Instant Dog (with Roy Doty)

Beau

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Living on Wheels

Once Upon a Thermal

World of Silent Flight

The Labrador Retriever: The History... The People

Dutton

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

penguinrandomhouse.com

Revised edition: February 1999

Copyright 1963, 1975 by Richard A. Wolters

Photographs copyright 1999 by Joseph Middleton

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Interior black-and-white photography by Tom Braswell and Leslie Middleton

Processing by Tom Braswell

Championship Labradors trained and supplied by Lisa Keplar and Sunspots Labradors of Raleigh, North Carolina

DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wolters, Richard A.

Family dog : 16 weeks to a well-mannered dog : a simple and time-proven method / Richard A. Wolters Rev. ed.

p. cm.

Includes index

1. DogsTraining I. Title

SF431.W668 1999

636.70887dc21 98-38177 CIP

Ebook ISBN: 9781101667491

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Version_1

Special thanks to

Hugh Rawson

Olive Wolters

Dr. James Hassinger

Colleen Adams

Connie Hussey

Lane & Leslie Middleton

William, Lisa Keplars adult Labrador

Luke, Zachary Isenhours Labrador puppy

Dedicated to All Kids and Dogs

It should be stated at the outset that the author of this book is some kind of a nut, or something. His taste in haberdashery iswell, perhaps the adjective is uninhibited. He wears a mustache that reminds some thoughtful observers of Chaplin and some of Menjou and some of a way-stop in between.

He has no special enthusiasm for standard beds in conventional houses. He prefers to sleep in a vehicle which he calls a camper and you or I would call a bus. It is a small bus with handsomely curtained windows, the curtains cut, fitted, and stitched by a spouse whose patience, understanding, and indulgence should serve as an example to spouses everywhere. (Or spice? Plurals always give me trouble.)

Our author, to repeat, enjoys sleeping in this bus, conventionally attired in pajamas of staid cut and pattern. There is nothing whatever unusual about the pajamas, unless you count the harness and shoulder holster containing a large, lethal roscoe which he wears outside.

Our author enjoys fishing and hunting, which certainly does not mark him as unusual. What does set him apart from some zillions of fellow citizens is that when he goes fishing he casts a fly supremely well, and when he goes hunting he hits what he shoots at.

When he sets out to train a dogand here we get to the meat of the subjecthe does not go sit at the feet of some picturesque Maine guide listening to old husbands tales about how you got to wait till this here pup is a year old, anyways, before you start tryin to teach him anything. He goes instead to a research laboratory where scientists are engaged in learning how a dog thinks. Here he is advised that a puppy starts getting smart, and amenable to instruction, exactly seven weeks after he is whelped.

Dick Wolters goes home and tries it out. It works. This is un-American. It is disrespectful of Maine guides. But it works. Dick Wolters, with his knotheaded, newfangled notions, keeps training dogs and they keep turning out perfect gentlemen.

Then he writes books about how its done, but he doesnt simply put down the words, like a proper author. He takes pictures, scads of pictures. Then he puts the pictures in the book, so that instead of just telling you how to train a dog he shows you, step by step, how any intelligent child can do it.

It is a well-known fact that keeping a dog can be just as much trouble as keeping a woman. Mr. Wolters undertakes to show that it can also be just as much fun. Chances are there is something subversive about this.

Red Smith

As I reach for the keys of the typewriter, the first sentence all figured out, the door of the study opens and in pops a head. My ideas fly to the wind. Daughter Gretchen bursts in to show a new dress to be worn tomorrow, the first day of second grade. She bubbles out as fast as she had gushed in.

Now the door is open. The next to enter is Tar, the big black Labrador retriever. He sniffs, puts his head on my work table (thats how big he is now), waits for a pat, turns, and once again Im alone. Come to think of it, day after tomorrow he also starts second grade... hes going hunting for the first time. These intruders are the real heroine and hero of this book. As you thumb through, youll see how cooperatively and enthusiastically they learned their lessons.

It was a lot of work.

Newton saw an apple fall from a tree and got the idea of gravity, but he was smart. I didnt get the idea for this book; a friend gave it to me. Women are so smart. Heres how she got the idea.

I was visiting an old friend, a boy I grew up with in Philadelphia. Ive known his wife almost as long as Ive known him. I had the manuscript of the first book of this series, Gun Dog, with me and I was explaining my new theories of dog training to Dr. Donald Jay Ottenberg and his wife, Martha. As I recall it, it was either getting late or my enthusiastic, exuberant expounding of the theory of early dog training caused Martha to respond by going to sleep on the living room couch. After what seemed to me like an interesting short monologue, Martha woke up in an hour or so, sat up, stretched, blinked, and mumbled something about she was sorry she was so sleepy but she had a tough day with the kids and Chiquita Maana. The latter is their dog, half Chihuahua or other, mixed with something else. Why dont you do me a favor and if you do, every mother in America will love you, she continued, rubbing her sleepy head. After you tell the hunter how to train his dog, write a book to show the kids how to train and take the responsibility of the familys best friend. Its the kids dog, yet I have all the work. She went back to sleep. Up she popped again, wide-eyed. Can your training method be used on the kids?